1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the coating of substrates, and in particular to an apparatus and process for the efficient coating of substrates using chemical vapor reaction and gas plasma cleaning.
2. Description of the Related Art
The application of coatings onto substrates and other workpieces is required as a process step in many industrial fields. An example of such a process is the coating of a silicon wafer with a layer of Hexamethyldisalizane (HMDS). This coating process is used to promote the adhesion of organic layers such as photoresist to the inorganic silicon wafer. The HMDS molecule has the ability to adhere to the silicon wafer and also to be adhered to by an organic additional layer. For example, silicon wafers would be baked for 30 minutes in a 150C oven for 30 minutes to dehydrate them. The silicon wafers would then be sprayed with HMDS. The excess HMDS would then be spun off of the silicon wafer. A typical process of this type would result in a HMDS monolayer on the surface of the silicon wafer.
A problem encountered with the above mentioned process was that if the silicon wafer was not sufficiently dry prior to the application of HMDS, then residual moisture would interfere with the reaction of the HMDS to the silicon wafer. This would result in variations in the HMDS layer reaction and then could lead to voids in the subsequently applied next layer. Another problem with a process of this type is that HMDS would rapidly deteriorate when exposed to air and moisture, and thus such a process required a large amount of HMDS to provide a small amount of reaction.
Because of the problems relating to variations in the HMDS monolayer, processes for the coating of substrates with HMDS evolved. Later processes more thoroughly dehydrated the silicon wafer substrate prior to the application of HMDS, and limited the HMDS from much, if any, exposure to air and moisture. An example of such a process would be as follows. Silicon wafers would be placed in a vacuum chamber and cycled back and forth between vacuum and preheated hot dry nitrogen in order to dehydrate the silicon wafer. For example, the silicon wafer would be exposed to a vacuum of 10 Torr for 2 minutes. At this pressure water boils at about 11 C. The vacuum chamber would then be flooded with preheated nitrogen at 150 C. This part of the process would heat the surface of the silicon wafer so that the high temperature of the wafer would assist in the dehydration process as vacuum was once again applied. After 3 complete cycles, a vacuum of 1 Torr would be applied to complete the dehydration process.
The next step in such a process is to open a valve between the vacuum chamber and a canister of HMDS. At room temperature the HMDS boils at approximately 14 Torr and thus the chamber is flooded with 14 Torr of HMDS vapor. In this process the HMDS is not exposed to air or moisture and the silicon wafer is significantly dryer prior to being coated.
Some coating processes based on the above mentioned type of process require a higher pressure. The HMDS is preheated to create a higher vapor pressure. Typical figures are preheating of the HMDS to 100 C to produce up to 400 Torr pressure or HMDS vapor while limiting the pressure in the process oven at 300 Torr to avoid condensation of the HMDS.
Processes involving the preheating of the deposition chemicals have the drawback that if the deposition chemicals degrade with exposure to heat then the bulk preheating of these chemicals may result in the loss of the unused residual chemical. These chemicals are often very expensive. Also, many of these chemicals are hazardous materials. The less of these chemicals actually being used in the process at any time reduces the potential risk for processing facilities.
The coating of substrates for biotech applications may require sufficiently dehydrated substrates and insertion into the process chamber of one or more deposition chemicals which have been preheated and/or vaporized prior to insertion. Some coatings for biotech applications are quite expensive. Some coatings are difficult to vaporize and vaporization requires a combination of low pressure and high temperature. Without reduced pressure, the temperature required for vaporization may be too high to retain stability of the chemical to be vaporized. Biotech applications may require silane deposition onto glass and/or other substrates as a bridge to organic molecules. Among the silanes used are amino silanes, epoxy silanes, and mercapto silanes. These silanes are used in the adhesion layer between glass substrates and oligonucleotides. Oligonucleotides are a short DNA monomer. Substrates are coated with a monolayer of silane as a bridge between the inorganic substrate and the organic oligonucleotide. A silane coated substrate with an oligonucleotide layer is now a standard tool used in biotech test regimens. One area where this oligonucleotide layer is used is in the formation of DNA microarrays. A uniform and consistent silane layer leads to a more uniform and consistent top surface of the oligonucleotide layer, which in turn leads to more useful test results.
What is called for is a process and apparatus which withdraws deposition chemicals from a bulk storage container and then preheats and/or vaporizes this portion separately prior to delivery into the process chamber, allowing for the introduction of deposition chemicals at high temperatures and/or vapor pressures into a process chamber, without requiring preheating of bulk amounts of the deposition chemicals. What is also called for is an apparatus which is able to plasma clean substrates in the chamber into which the vaporized chemicals will be delivered, and an apparatus which can clean itself after such production runs using plasma.
Substrates coated with such a process have reduced contamination, have more consistent monolayers with better bonds to the substrate, allowing for a more consistent oligonucleotide layer. This consistent substrate, used in DNA microarray tests, leads to more accurate test results